Red Iron Cape
by Kelly Morgan
Summary: A soft red cape with iron implications is the only thing holding Riviera to the mother. And growing up is the only thing pulling her away.
1. Chapter 1

"I'm letting you go to your grandmother's house today." I look up from my newest basket, but not too quickly, lest I seem eager.  
  
"What's the occasion?" I inquire softly. The mother shrugs, lets out a dismissive breath, then eyes me.  
  
"Do you not want to go?"  
  
"Of course I do," I say, perhaps a tad too quickly. The mother raises her eyebrow. "Mother," I add, my toes curling inside of the shiny shoes. She smiles.  
  
"Well. You can fill one of your baskets with food for her." She says the word 'basket' like she always does: full of contempt. I nod obediently. "I just baked some bread and you can bring her some of the wine that she likes." As I rise to get the bread and wine, she continues, following me about the house with her usual hawk air. "And Daughter." I stop, dreading what will come next. "If you come home in any way mussed, the consequences will not be pleasant." The mother's eyes peruse my face, searching for an inkling of defiance. I hold back a blink, freezing every feature. She finds only the face of a docile young girl. She finds only what she's looking for, a skill which has taken me a lifetime to acquire. I move through the house efficiently, gathering what I need and placing it into my basket. Every time I turn around, the mother is there, standing as straight as a broom, watching me. No matter how many times she does this, my throat still goes dry.  
  
I go into my room momentarily to fetch my cape, trying not to look at the walls with baby doll-like flowers painted on them, trying not to notice the doll carriages and miniature tables with miniature teacups, trying not to remember that I'm supposed to be a child.  
  
The cape is the one thing that is still iron. The cape is the one thing that is pain to wear and agony to see. Everything else is discomfort, everything else is merely sandstone, but the cape is pain and the cape is iron.  
  
I stand on the front steps, facing the mother and feeling like a soldier.  
  
"Stay on the path." Her eyes are hard. "Do not stray from the path."  
  
"Yes." The mother arches an eyebrow. "Yes, Mother," I say hurriedly. The mother appears to be satisfied, for she leans back, brushing her floured hands on her apron.  
  
"Good girl." She leans down again, presenting her cheek to me. I lean forward and peck it. She stands again, smoothes my hood, gives me a curved menace of a smile, and closes the door. I know she is watching secretly from the window, so I hold myself in composure and walk down the immaculate path towards the woods.  
  
As soon as I am around the first corner and into the forest, I drop my basket, hold back my curls, and retch into the grass on the side of the small road. I run blindly to the stream and drink, gulping greedily getting the taste of her off of my lips. I stand, mouth dripping. I wipe my lips, retrieve my basket, and continue down the path, trying to hold my mind onto the flowers and sunshine.  
  
A man is there. I can see him, lurking through the shadows of the wood. I can feel him, sliding in and out of my presence, always a few feet behind me. Suddenly he is here, leaning against a tree not ten feet away. There is something slightly animal about his manner, something sly in the way he moves.  
  
"Hello, little girl," he says softly, gold eyes glowing like the sun. My skin prickles.  
  
"Hello, sir," I reply curtly. I quicken my pace, passing him, freezing my features to hide my surprise as he appears, noiselessly, in front of me once more.  
  
"Please," he purrs, "call me Lucas." I stare at him for a calculated moment, and then stride on, the heels of my shining shoes slipping around slightly.  
  
"You're the girl with the mother, aren't you?" At this I spin around. My voice darts out as icicles  
  
"Most girls have mothers." He laughs, a sound that sends decidedly unpleasant shivers across my back.  
  
"Clever, young miss." My pulse jumps. "But I think you know what I mean." I stand very still.  
  
"I know perfectly well what you mean, Sir," I sneer, exaggerating the formality of the title, "but, unfortunately for you, I have nothing to say on the subject." I turn on my heel and move away.  
  
"I like your curls." His voice is almost inaudible behind me on the trail, but I hear him. My foot hits the ground awkwardly and pebbles fly. "Always making a mess," he murmurs, next to me again, pushing the pebbles back onto the path. I stare at the pebble dust on my shoes, unable to make eye contact. He bends down slowly and brushes the dirt off. I look away, off at the trees. One sways in a breeze. A bird moves. Nerves mounting, I walk away. He follows.  
  
"Little girl, where's the rush?" I point down the path, blood dancing in my veins.  
  
"My grandmother."  
  
"Mhm. And do you like to go to this grandmother of yours?"  
  
I turn my head to give him a glare. I am met by a look of mischievous surprise.  
  
"Why little girl."  
  
"I'm not a little girl and I'm not afraid of you." I squeeze myself together into one taut line, forcing my statement to be true. He laughs again in that distressing manner and I feel a nerve come undone.  
  
"Yes, but she wants you to be." Though I've looked away, I can feel his glittering eyes on my curls and on my cape and on my shining shoes.  
  
My pulse quickens once more and images of doll carriages and child- sized tea tables flash across my mind. Acute awareness of the cape brushing against my arms strikes me. I make myself stone, showing him nothing that he wants. "I don't know who you're talking about."  
  
"If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a liar." His voice is suddenly hard, losing the playful, lilting tones of moments before. He springs up on my other side, startling me, making me gasp. As he smiles, light flashes off of his all too bright fangs. "Now tell me, dear."  
  
"No," I snap. He chuckles.  
  
"Well at least come pick some flowers for granny.the bread and wine will take care of her taste, but what will tickle her eyes?" My quick glance in his direction is met with a smile. "I have a very good sense of smell." He bounds away, off through the woods, plucking up a white flower on his way. He turns, sees me still standing on the path.  
  
"Come along, the flowers don't grow where you stand," he calls, his voice ringing through the silence of the wood.  
  
I stand paralyzed on the path. Following the man whose name is Lucas is not an option, for if I stray from the path, the mother will find out. She always finds out. The iron cape roots my feet into place. But then the man called Lucas stares back at me, fifty feet away, twirling a white flower and smiling in a disconcerting way, will know. He'll know about the mother and about this stupid crimson cape and about my room filled with toys back home. I know I have to choose between grief now, or grief later. The choice is a pointless one.  
  
But suddenly, I am overwhelmed by the fact that there is a choice. It makes me giddy. It loosens the roots of my feet on the path. A choice, I think, intense luxury sweeping over my body. I can choose. Ripe with this sudden new development, I step off the path and stride towards the man named Lucas. His grin broadens and every step I take feels like I'm sinking deeper and deeper into mud. But the mud is mine, and so I keep walking. 


	2. Chapter 2

Riviera comes closer and closer and my heart sings. I can't believe it's happening.I can't believe she's here. I tuck the flower behind my ear and pluck another one, watching her stride towards me. She's finally coming home, I think, thoroughly satisfied.  
  
As I stand, waiting, a thorn catches onto the edge of that silly red cape and she gasps, turning to free it. As she turns, a branch pulls off her hood and startles her. Beginning to panic, she bats the branch out of her way, but it whips back and scratches her cheek. My heart leaps as she begins to whimper and gasp.  
  
"My dear, my dear, hold still!" I cry. "Just hold still!" She settles down, freezing herself. I wince; she's freezing herself for me. I made her freeze. Shaking off the bright pang of remorse, I take a deep breath and walk towards her, the red cape stirring in the gentle breeze. I push the branch away from her face.  
  
"Reach behind yourself and unhook the thorn from your cape.there, lovely." I reassure, coaching her through and avoiding the bright red glare of the cloak. After a minute's nimble finger work, she is free. I step back and she darts forward as the branches snap into place. She smoothes the cape nervously, checking for snarls or tears. Finding none, she sighs contentedly. I grimace. That stupid cape.how could she care about it? I gesture to the sky.  
  
"The sun is shining beautifully." I stop myself from calling her Riviera, ".little girl. Why not take off your hood and enjoy the warmth?" She pales ever so slightly.  
  
"Stop calling me that." Her voice wavers as she falls right into my trap.  
  
"Then what should I call you?" She looks down, glances back at the path, smoothes her cape again and speaks.  
  
"Riviera's fine." I almost sing. She's here, she's finally here, and she's letting me use her name. I grin.  
  
"What a beautiful name. Now tell me, Riviera," my heart skips, "what do you say to a snack? Of, perhaps, bread and wine?" I eye her basket, stomach growling. How I miss her mother's cooking. To my delight, she nods, sits down and takes out the bottle and bread. I crouch next to her, loving the closeness that I foolishly forwent years ago. It was a choice that I made with much deliberation, and a choice that led to my life in the wood, away from Riviera and away from Elizabeth. Away from the life that I cultivated and away from what I am trying to get back.  
  
She pours the soft purple wine into two earthenware mugs and tears the bread. Though she is careful, flour flies everywhere, dusting the grass a lovely, muted green. After we take sips from our cups and eat the bread for a moment, she speaks. I nearly choke.  
  
"So, ah, Lucas.where do you live?" Lucas, Lucas, she finally used my name!  
  
"Oh, just around in the wood." Her eyes widen.  
  
"In the wood? Are you mad? It's dangerous here!" I smile.  
  
"Really? I've never found it to be. Look how straight the path is.look how white the flowers are.see how clear and blue the sky is? There is no danger at all here." I let her think on this for a moment, pretending to take in my surroundings. I take a swig from my cup. "Who said it was dangerous anyway?"  
  
"Oh, just." her voice trails off as she chokes on the words I know she thinks.  
  
"Just who, Riviera?" She doesn't respond, but absorbs herself in her cup and her bread. "Just your mother?" The girl freezes. She labors painstakingly to swallow the piece of bread she holds in her mouth and then gulps from her cup.  
  
"Yes. Just her," she replies, setting the cup down on the powder- dusted blades of grass and brushing her floury hands off. Nonchalance is all her manner holds, but I know better.  
  
"You know, your lovely red cape is going to get simply coated in flour unless you hang it somewhere," I say, feigning indifference. I sit, starving for her reply. There is none, but she does regard the white dust all around her with a new wariness. She plucks at the cape and, by pure chance and to my good fortune, a speck of flour is on her right arm. A tiny, stifled gasp escapes her and she brushes at it. I reach forward to take it from her, to go hang it up and get the dreaded thing away from me, away from her, but I can't touch it. It reeks of Elizabeth's piercing, ever-present gaze and it gives off the heat from a thousand motionless moments. I can't touch it.  
  
I turn my rigid hand into a signpost, directing her towards a tree back from where she came.  
  
"You can go hang it up over on that tree, if you wish," I encourage, smiling and sipping the sweet wine appreciatively. She stands shakily and turns, walking towards the tree, tugging at the strings that bind it to her neck. I watch, parched for the moment when she is free from that wretched cape forever.  
  
The moment comes. It slides off her shoulders and she hangs it hesitantly on a branch. I chalk another point to my side and move on.  
  
"This bread is delicious.did your mother bake it?"  
  
"Yes," responds Riviera as she moves back towards me.  
  
"Tell me about your mother, Riviera," I say lightly, smiling and chewing on another bite of bread. She looks at me sharply.  
  
"You already seem to know plenty about her, if I don't say so myself." I laugh.  
  
"True, I know more of her than I'd like.but what do you think of her?" She pours herself a second cup of wine and tosses it back, perfect curls bouncing slightly. Despite their connection to that wicked woman, they look quite nice. I growl inwardly to think of Elizabeth tightening the curlers on Riviera's head, to think of the room, most certainly unchanged, filled with pastel colored things and wishes for a little girl, to think of her donning that terrible, constraining cape every time it strikes Elizabeth's unnatural fancy. I growl inwardly at all of this as I smile, waiting for her to hate the woman that I so despise. I smile at Riviera, waiting for all the fear to turn into loathing. I smile and I wait. I wait for her to realize where she shouldn't be. I wait for her to realize what danger really is. Danger is not what other people don't want. Danger is fear. I smile and I wait for her to realize this.  
  
"She's difficult." I blink. From where I sit, it doesn't sound like the grand revelation I was waiting for. I remain silent. "She doesn't let me do much.and sometimes." I lean forward. Sometimes you want to just run away and be free, isn't that it, Riviera? Sometimes you just want to get away from that sickening mother of yours?  
  
"Sometimes I get the feeling she doesn't want me to grow older," she finishes.  
  
"And what, pray tell, gives you that idea?" My tone becomes soft and I clutch my cup, trusting her to know exactly what I mean. She shakes her head as if trying to dispel a displeasing thought.  
  
"Didn't you--didn't you already say something? About this? Didn't you?" I wince. True, I did let that slip in my excitement, but now is the time to deny it.  
  
"Perhaps," I say reluctantly, "but I don't remember. Are you quite sure?" I drop my voice to a murmur again, watching for her reaction with the errorless eyes of her mother.  
  
"No. Not anymore." She speaks like each word is a stepping-stone across a river, a stone that must be measured and then forcefully leapt to. "I'm not sure of anything anymore. I used to be sure that my family was perfect.we were perfect.but then."  
  
"But then what?" I watch and listen, suspended over the smooth, empty ravine of her silence.  
  
"But then he left. My father.left. One day he was there, the next." she waves her hand and guffaws. "The next I was five once more."  
  
She admitted it. My mind flares up, bright golden flashes of victory exploding at every turn.  
  
"Do you like the way she treats you?" I urge, my cup of wine spilled in the floury grass as I stand on all fours, staring at her intently. She blinks slowly.  
  
"What?" The one word takes forever for her to utter, forever and another few breathless days.  
  
"Do you like it? Do you like her constantly staring, do you like the way she tucks you in? Do you like having to kiss her goodbye? Do you mind paying that tiny, though painful, price to get out and away from her? Well? Do you? Answer me!" My voice rings through the forest. She stares at me, eyes wide, a bright instinct trapped behind them. I realize that I'm practically nose-to-nose with her, shouting in her face. I sit back, ashamed.  
  
"Forgive me, Riviera, that was completely uncalled." I begin, but she cuts me off, her voice a violin's lone tremor.  
  
"No." I stop.  
  
"No?"  
  
"No." I pause.  
  
"Then come live with me." Her face contorts into a single question mark, looking at me as if I'm a crazy man. "Riviera." I squeeze my eyes shut. On my eyelids, I see all of the memories of her as a girl, a little girl, my little girl. On my eyelids I see her mother always bringing her in, I see myself trapped between a multitude of silences or a single disappointed face. I see the wrong choice. I see her crestfallen features day after day after day after day until the only choice is to go into the wood and to stay there.  
  
"Riviera, I'm your father." Her mouth opens, as if to exclaim something, so I hurry on. "I left, I left a long time ago because I ruined your life and I couldn't stand seeing it that way any longer. And I hate myself for leaving even more than I hate myself for relinquishing your freedom to the promise of happiness. Promises are empty, that's what I have learned, promises are empty. It seemed like a good idea at the time, I swear on all the pain I've ever felt, I swear." I can see her struggling to comprehend, her eyes turning murky and dim, giving me a look as if I'm worse than anything she's ever seen. "Please, Riviera, escape! We'll-- we'll throw that nasty, rotten cape away and you can run barefoot!" I can feel my voice growing higher in pitch and tightening. I fear my voice will shatter under the strain of wanting my only daughter back. "Please, please, stay with me! You'll never have to look at her again and everything will be all right once more, you'll see, just please, please stay with me!" As her silence persists, I grow anxious. "Riviera, can't you see? Can't you see what danger you're in? Danger is what you fear, Riviera, and don't you fear her? Don't you fear the same room and the same cape? Riviera? Are you there? Please, Riviera!" She says nothing and I lunge at her to shake her, to wake her up. "Riviera!" I cry, shaking her shoulders roughly, "Listen to me! Listen to me!"  
  
Suddenly the dark confusion in her eyes disappears and she rises, shrugging me off more roughly than that worthless cape, snatching up her basket and stumbling backwards. I scramble towards her, gasping, wilderness swallowing my vision. She runs towards the tree, plucks the cape, that stupid, blood red cape, and runs. She runs away from me, back onto the path, back towards grandmother's house, back to the shackles. Back, back, back. Back where I ran from all those years ago.  
  
"No," I whisper, arm outstretched, trying to hold my daughter one last time. "No." 


End file.
